Cieden Podcast

Bruce Yang is a Head of Product at Way2B1. He previously led product management at Triumph, Forge, and others. In this episode, Bruce discusses building an AI-centric culture and the importance of hiring builders over predefined roles. We also explore aligning team biases and establishing an AI Center of Excellence.

Learn how to transform your organization into an AI-native powerhouse. Discover strategies to implement AI policies th...

Javier Bargas left a 14-year career at Google, where he led UX research across YouTube and Google Play, to launch Astrolabium — a training company for UX professionals.

In this episode, we dive into building impactful research teams, avoiding AI hype traps, and what it really takes to drive user-centric innovation in 2025. Founders, designers, and product leaders — this one’s for you.

What’s in here:

• Rapid Research at Google

Rodolfo Ferro Casagrande is the Head of Design at Helcim, a payments company that delivers an easier, smarter, and more affordable payment experience with a human touch.

In this episode, Rodolfo unpacks the art of crafting delightful digital products. Drawing on over a decade of experience in product and brand design, Rodolfo reveals how to create user experiences that resonate, blend creativity with functionality, and inspire desi...

Join us as we talk with Peter Hazlehurst, Co-founder and CEO of Synctera, a fintech company that raised $33M Series A to help connect banks and fintechs. 

Peter, who previously led teams at Google, Uber, and Nokia, shares his insights on the evolving landscape of fintech and banking. 

Discover how smaller players can be empowered to innovate and learn about the transformative potential of Banking as a Service (BaaS).  We'll explo...

Joshua Kerievsky is the CEO of the agile consultancy Industrial Logic. For decades, he has been helping companies like Google, Ford, and other Fortune 500 firms build better products and lead more fulfilling lives. 

To share these insights with a broader audience, he wrote The Joy of Agility, a book recommended by Marty Cagan to all product professionals and beyond. Its mission is to challenge the common perception that Agile is ju...

Magnus Hillestad is the CEO and co-founder of Sanity, a company with a gross revenue retention of 97%. Basically, nobody's leaving their product. How did they achieve that?

By being intentional. This is Magnus’s favorite word. What he means by that is asking yourself what you are trying to solve as a startup and then focusing on that using frameworks like SCQA, V2Mom, and others.

This episode distills the essence of the learni...

Hans Guntren is the Vice President of Product Design at Demandbase, focusing on delivering customer value through AI and Machine Learning. He's a veteran technology executive and board advisor with over 20 years of product design experience.

Hans spent over a decade advising Silicon Valley technology firms and worked within IBM's Silicon Valley Lab, where he managed product design and oversaw a host of complex enterprise pr...

Santiago Cardona, Director of Product Management at Fingercheck, shares his insights on navigating product strategy amid uncertainty. With Fingercheck's platform experiencing rapid growth and 100K daily active users, Santiago's responsibilities are crucial in steering product development.

So, what makes his approach special is focus on weekly customer engagement, agility in strategy, and fostering collaboration within teams...

In this episode, Brighton Vino Jegarajan, Head of Design at Aviatrix, shares how he’s promoting design thinking among teammates and across the board. He also talks about the challenges and opportunities of designing for cloud networking services, where users often have a stronger technical background than the designers and engineers.

Brighton believes the biggest modern challenge for product leaders lies in fostering cohesion acros...

Larry Pelty is a product design leader with 24 years of experience, not including his background as a digital artist. Today, he holds the position of Director of Product Design at Clari and advocates for a transition from traditional product design to AI-driven product design.

Larry encourages designers to change their mindset and embrace AI as an assistive technology to refine product experiences. He emphasizes the importance of ...

Dive into the world of AI product development with insights from Ari Kahn, CEO of Bridgeline and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.

Ari boasts 20 years of experience growing SaaS companies. He co-founded FatWire, which was later acquired by Oracle for $160 million. Under his leadership, FatWire expanded globally with offices in 13 countries and received top industry analyst ratings. Following this successful acquisition, Ari served ...

Robin Titus is a self-taught designer who built one of the first design teams at Capgemini 10 years ago. He started as a product manager and then ventured into design to follow his aspirations. 

Throughout the 25+ years of the product journey, Robin has had a varied career that includes involvement with startups, scale-ups, and corporates. 

Currently, he leads the product design team at Aiven, a triple-unicorn scale-up based in Hel...

As the founder of an SEO agency and a software product, SearchPilot, Will Critchlow has spent over 20 years bringing businesses more revenue through SEO.

Unlike influencers who proliferate buzzwords, Will tells us the hard truth: to increase revenue with SaaS SEO, you need to test everything patiently. And if you are a startup founder, there's a high chance SEO is not even for you.

This episode dives deep into the potential of ...

Meet Michal Kolasa, the Design Director at Chili Piper, a leading billion-dollar startup revolutionizing B2B sales. With over $25 million in ARR, Chili Piper offers a suite of products, including lead routing, form scheduling, SDR-to-AE handoff, and much more.

In this video, Michal shares his vision of product design and expertise in enhancing user experiences. We'll also discuss the state of modern design education and how to...

The sales tech platform category is blowing up. Apollo raised $100 million and hit unicorn status in 2023. Lots of other sales intelligence tools release more and more go-to-market workflows.

How to compete with that? How to think ahead and build the right product strategy? How to nail a product launch, go-to-market plan, and messaging? 

When it comes to mastering these challenges, there's no one better suited than Todd Busler.

Tal Florentin has designed 250 digital products before transitioning to the role of founder and CEO of the AI-driven startup, Summurai. Among his numerous accomplishments, he has won multiple UX awards and published books titled 'Design for a Perfect Screen' and 'Upwork Hacks.'

He is also the founder of the Israeli UX Certification Program, a speaker at multiple conferences, and a guest on various podcasts.

Current...

What does it take to apply a customer-led growth strategy for a startup?

Join Anastasiya Mudryk as she chats with Jennica Chiang, CEO and Founder of Shop Suki. Shop Suki is an eCommerce startup that became the No.1 grocery store and delivery in the Philippines on the App Store.

In just three years, amidst the pandemic, without massive ad campaigns and huge budgets, the team achieved an NPS score of 78.

In this episode, we'll r...